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Bad Bad Helen Thomas

Nothing lasts forever. Not Sara Lee foods, which is slated to be bought out later this year along with their crumb cakes, nor Office Depot, which may explain why I haven’t seen many lately, nor Borders Books.

Now the Society of Professional Journalists has swung the gauntlet towards Helen Thomas and her journalism award. They didn’t do it. They were merely the messengers. She was the catalyst.

Maybe part of it was her age. Maybe it was that let it all hang out, I’ve lived long enough, so get out of my way, Sonny frame of mind that people reach when they get anywhere beyond 35. I remember my paternal grandmother, who at 103 had Thomas beaten out by about thirteen years. She was very sweet when I was younger and even used to hook rugs for me on a loom. Then she hit one of those milestones, all hell broke loose, the loom went to the attic, and she announced that she was going to say exactly what she thought, and some of it wasn’t very flattering.

So maybe Thomas had been bitten by the same bug last May when she told a rabbi that the “Jews should get the hell out of Palestine and go home” after he asked her if she had any comment on Israel. When he asked her where home was, she said Poland, Germany (the wrong choices) or the United States (one of the better ones.) She was later fired from her job at Hearst Newspapers.

Then in December of that same year, she wrung down the final curtain on her career and that award when she added that the Jews own the media. Helen Thomas is not entitled. She’s senile.

The SPJ was right in nixing the award because it would be like having a Sadaam Hussein Award for curbing inner-city violence or a Mussolini Award for urban planning. It just wouldn’t fly in the face of the messes that some people make.